The project can't be all bad right? Some people must be getting work from it that actually need it although the only thing I ever see is the rich getting richer by the ton. If only Trimet management hadn't proven to be such liars over and over we might be able to believe their figures.

The Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail Transit Project (PMLR) now under
construction has reached a new jobs milestone – by creating and
maintaining more than 5,000 jobs, and providing a record $103 million in
contracts to Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) firms.

Again, thanks to Lane Jensen for doing the research and publishing of this information. Some of the obscene raises become obvious. It looks like some positions were renamed and some were dissolved and the money saved from that has been handed to other employees.
Google docs version is HERE!
Pictures below (remember on blogger you can click on pics for expanded views)

Mcfarlane has said in a recent board meeting that 'the west-side service area has not seen any significant realignments since the 1990's.' .
Those of us familiar with Trimet's west side service know that is nonsense.(thanks to Lane Jensen for creating this)

It's bad enough these morons put up an impossible excuse for the MAX door staying open, but then they had to add in their ANTI UNION propaganda.They are snakes in the grass! TriMet’s union employees have the most generous health care benefits in
the country. If no other reforms are made in the upcoming contract,
TriMet will face a $19 million service crisis beginning in FY17 that
grows more extensive every year. (slugs looking for scapegoats)

Boy is this a familiar scenario “If this is such a good idea, why don’t you let the county vote on
it?” one resident asked, prompting the chant of “Vote! Vote! Vote!”County
Board member Mary H. Hynes said the county does not have the right
under Virginia law to hold a referendum unless the county is asking
voters to approve issuing general obligation bonds.“How is it not
an ethics violation for a member of this board to be employed by a
company that has financially benefited from this project?” another
resident asked.Arlington streetcar forum gets raucous - The Washington Post

Jeers: To sneaky raises for top TriMet managers. For months the
Portland transit agency has lamented its financial woes. Already
burdened by a bloated pension system, TriMet is running a $12 million
deficit, has cut bus service five times in four years, and recently
saddled riders with the biggest fare increase in its history, according
to The Oregonian.
So it's no wonder that top executive Neil McFarlane tried to keep the
raises, which totaled $910,000, under wraps. In fact, he even bragged
he'd frozen the pay of nonunion workers. The reality? One executive,
already earning $166,000, got a $14,000 raise. A light-rail program
manager got a nearly 18 percent pay boost. The public relations person
on the embattled Portland-Milwaukie light-rail line got an 8.24 percent
increase, bringing her pay to $118,000. McFarlane later told The
Oregonian: "We didn't do a very good job" with transparency on the
matter. No kidding. TriMet's board would do well to hold McFarlane
accountable for these shenanigans.

The lack of valid public input has been exposed repeatedly by public votes that show an overwhelming lack of public support. Here is a list of Clackamas rejections of TriMet's plans.Twice, in 1996 and 1998 elections, Clackamas voters rejected funding light-rail projects.In 2011, 63 percent of Clackamas voters rejected the Sellwood Bridge vehicle registration fee, from which Portland Mayor Sam Adams promised to divert $20 million to the Milwaukie light-rail project.In 2011, 70 percent of Clackamas voters blocked the use of urban renewal funding, which had been proposed to finance the Milwaukie light-rail project.In 2012, 60 percent of Clackamas County voters passed Measure 3-401, to require a public vote on all future light-rail spending decisions by county commissioners.Last November, Clackamas voters replaced two county commissioners who saddled us with $20 million of light-rail debt with new commissioners who promised to take future light-rail decisions to the voters.

Thursday, March 28, 2013

A
bus operator awaiting a traffic signal in a through lane is approached
by a patron standing in a parallel turn lane attempting to board. The
bus operator signals to the patron to move to the curb or far-side stop.
Is this proper or should the operator have boarded the patron to
remove him/her from potential traffic danger?

The man is a disgrace. He withholds information from the board and the public.He has never mentioned the latest ERB RULING which requires him to reimburse employees for his illegal imposition of health care costs.And he has neglected to mention the lawsuit for $20 million dollars for violating wage laws.So what good is he when he routinely censors information from the board and the public

Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail ProjectThe car was actually very evident inside of the building—in fact, it was a famous component of the diner. The owner of the historical photograph and map business, History Image, and other building tenants over the years were aware of the car being embedded in the building.

Mr Lehto has the audacity to use the words 'frequent service' when the bus is running about once every 20 minutes?That is not frequent service. The 57 line used to have 4 buses an hour, now it has three buses an hour.This is a great example of how Trimet management distorts the truth of the situation.

Brought to you by Jason Mchuff. You can get an AUDIO recording of these board meetings from TRIMET but you will have to pay for that. TRIMET, the most secret transit agency in the United States,The meeting begins with a gushy outpouring of support from the government bureaucrats for the Mcfarlane, very predictable of course. Of course none of those bureaucrats actually use public transit of course. What you are really witnessing are the elite deciding what is best for its citizens.

One of my detractors that occasionally posts comments to this blog that I end up deleting called me and Lane 'clowns'.I love when people throw stones at me. These are always LOTS OF TALK and ZERO action people.Talk is cheap, action takes work.I don't see anybody else having the guts to take on Trimet head first.Just me and Lane.I know I have made a difference and from what I hear Lane is mentioned in the current Trimet training class and we have seen Lane on all the local news stations.Hardly 'clowns' I would say.

One of the criticisms I often get is that I am too 'negative'.Well ya! It's hard to be positive when my former employer employer is trying to starve me to death while the people responsible for starving me to death are getting rich.It's hard to stay positive when my former employer LIED TO ME about my retirement benefits.It's hard to stay positive when I saw the suffering thrust upon my riders while I was working there by faceless bureaucrats.There is nothing positive about this situation, this is a war, a war for peoples minds.And for one lonely guy sitting in a room, aided by some other lonely guys in their rooms, and one not so lonely girl, I think we have made a dent in Trimet's propaganda machine.And we are up against a billion dollar government funded agency and some high priced executives!The lonely guys have not been defeated as of this day!

Reading the article on TriMet in Saturday's paper reminded me again
of one reason things never change ("Shake-up pushed for embattled
TriMet," March 23).
The excuse of giving managers more money not because they have done
anything special but because they might leave is used over and over by
taxpayer-funded agencies as a justification for raises. But when these
entities fail to implement effective policies or can't provide adequate
services within their budget limitations, why do we want to make sure
that their decision-makers are kept?
I bet there are lots of qualified people ready to fill the shoes of
the rare manager who would actually give up his or her job without a
salary increase in tough times. If this happened, it might even open up
the door to fresh thinking.
JOAN STEARNS Southwest Portland

State Rep. Chris Gorsek's House Bill 3316 to allow the region's local
governments to appoint members to TriMet's board of directors does not
go far enough.
The directors should be elected by the citizens of TriMet's service
area. Political appointments would just lead to another insulated group
influenced by favoritism and cronyism.
This is, after all, a travesty perpetrated by TriMet officials on a
tri-county area, and it should be solved by the people who have suffered
at their hands.
ED ZUMWALT Milwaukie

The board of directors for a public transit agency should be elected by the voters in the transit service area.
School board members are elected by their district's voters. Why not
give the same power to the voters for transit agency boards?
PAULETTE ROSSI Northeast Portland

Then they only have themselves to blame.Trimet under shady Mcfarlane has stooped to new lows in dealing with its union and the union employees.Trimet is the one who violates the law.The latest decision required Trimet to pay back operators for a portion of the health care costs.Do you see Trimet talking about it or implementing it?NOPE! That's because we have rogues in charge of Trimet now who think they are above the law and who routinely ignore the law.So remember, even though Trimet has gone all out to point the finger at the union with the full cooperation of the major media, they are the ones to blame if they lose, not the union.

Here is the rumor that I had
promised Lane, about Warner. He worked for a company with the initials
PDC under a boss named Randy Leonard. Warner was actively trying to
union bust, and his boss got mad and stopped him. Don't know if he got
fired or not. But, this is another conflict of interest, due to the fact
that his actions on the board as a impartial third party, are
compromised, due to the fact that his position has nothing to due with
the company and the union's struggles.

When you think of modern, green,
public transportation, a city that likely comes to mind is Portland,
Oregon. Portland has built a reputation worldwide, and for many people,
it’s deserved. But as reporters Jennifer Kemp and Eric Klein found
out, that world class public transit doesn’t serve all members of the
public equally

Pretty accurate report other than the claim that Trimet is 'world class'.If you can't get home from the bar when it closes on public transit then 'world class' is not the word to describe the transit system.Also OPAL was the only place that exposed Trimet's lies about their budget. The mass media ignored it, as is standard operating procedure for them.

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

You're invited to join us for a Q & A with TriMet General Manager
Neil McFarlane tomorrow (Wednesday, March 27) 3-4 p.m. at Beaverton
Transit Center. In the area? Stop by and chat! Neil will be answering
questions and taking feedback from TriMet riders and operators. And, in
case you missed it, here's a re-cap of our recent "Coffee with Neil."

The lawsuit is garnering significant support within the state of Oregon
and also across state lines; 14 plaintiffs have joined with Margulies to
push the suit, and a California law firm is helping to represent the
disgruntled operators. Paul Breed, a Portland attorney who is teaming up with the law firm to pursue this case, discussed some of the details with Willamette Week.

The man on the left, recognizing that some people are struggling voluntarily decided to reduce his six figure salary by $20,000/year from $100,000 to $80,000/yr. The man on the right impervious to the suffering around him decided to increase his salary from $215,000/yr to $221,000 a year. The man on the left is ATU's Bruce Hansen, the man on the right is Trimet's Neil Mcfarlane. Which man would you trust?

“The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over” ~ Joseph Goebbels

You may have read recently in the paper or online that TriMet’s
non-union salary freeze was lifted in the middle of 2012. This means
that, for the first time since January 1, 2009, our 400 administrative
staff were eligible for salary increases. Administrative staff means
everyone who’s not in the union. These are the employees who provide
critical support to the 2,100-person union workforce that keep our
service moving. (critical support huh, I'd say you undermine your union employees)

Administrative employees, except those who
received promotions, had not seen ANY increase in their pay for 3.5
years.(he used to say 4 years, and he used to say that more than a year ago) In fact, their paychecks had gone DOWN, because they have been
paying a larger portion of their health care premiums. (oh my lord just take a look how farDOWN (click here)their poor paychecks have gone down. Could be as much as $99/mo for those poor executives earning more than $100K a year, whatever will they do now?Just think, Neils pay went down from $18,420 a month to $18,320/mo. Maybe he can get food stamps to help out)

Our
administrative employees have been “doing more with less” in a big way
for a long time.(uh huh, sure, we believe you) Since 2008, we’ve lost positions due to attrition, as
well as a round of layoffs. The result – those administrative employees
who remained have seen steep increases in their workloads. Except for a
small group of non-union employees who are paid by the hour, when
administrative employees work longer they don’t get overtime pay. In
this situation, you start to lose talented employees. (standard high paying bullshit rationale, this excuse is always used for over paid people)

That’s
why I made the decision to lift the salary freeze. (in secret) This decision cost
$910,000 (a million here, a million there, nobody will notice)—less than 1/5th of 1% of our $473 million annual operating
budget. The average increase was 3%. This is the same increase union
employees were receiving at the time. I believe investing in talented
and productive employees is always a smart business decision and pays
for itself many times over. (what else would he say to his 'secret' payoffs to his cronies)

There are a lot of decisions that
go into building the TriMet budget. In hindsight, last year’s decision
about administrative salaries is something we should have made more
clear and will do so in the upcoming budget process.(you know damn well what you did, you didn't think you would get caught)

This
morning I’m presenting the Proposed FY14 Budget to our Board. That
budget goes into effect July 1, 2013. Watch for details on TriNET and
trimet.org.

My thanks to each of you for your service to TriMet and the community.

(can't wait to see how this goes!)
On Monday TriMet launched the new ticket printers on lines 17 and 70.
Some operators on these lines are no longer handing out the traditional
flimsy, hole-punched slips after a rider puts cash or a ticket into the
fare box. Instead the operator pushes a button and a more durable and
legible ticket pops out of a new onboard ticket printer. The bus tickets
match those of MAX and WES, taking the confusion out of transferring.
They have a foil security strip and the 2-hour tickets are good for two
hours. The ticket printers will be tested on the lines 17 and 70 for
several weeks so TriMet staff can monitor the use and make any
adjustments necessary. After that, the printers will go into use on all
buses by July 1

This was a comment on Portland Transport in my never ending battle with Lenny Anderson who gets excited over the prospect of Trimet union employees losing benefits:

While the master class has done such a good job with sheeple like Mr
Anderson, who I still contend has a connection with Trimet management
which he is withholding from us, people have to strive to stop thinking
in boxes. The power elite, which uses mass media, leads the public to think in
boxes, which is what is happening here (and everywhere actually).So what is the real issue here?
The real issue here is how to use tax payer dollars.Everybody is in a huff over our benefit package, purportedly which
could end up leading to $1 billion in liability by the year 2027. But how much is that $1 billion when you look at how our taxes are being uses in other ways?It's nothing when compared to cost to the taxpayers on WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST!You want to complain about your taxes being misused, complain about something that has some real meaning.Furthermore, through the masterful deception of the Trimet Ministry
of Propaganda and its partner in crime the mainstream media, Trimet has
attempted to portray its workers as the villain.By fooling the gullible and impressionable public through skillful
use of the media, The skilled Trimet executives have been able to keep
attention off themselves.Why would they want to do that?I'll tell you why: There are 76 executives (these are aristocrats,
they have no public function) and these 76 aristocrats are soaking the
public for a combined total of $8.5 million (aprox) each and every year,
not including all the little extras in their budgets like travel, etc
and not including the price of their obscene pensions (Fred Hansen
soaking the tax payers for $16K a month while he travels to Australia
and continues adding to his net worth. The greed of these people is
insatiable)So there you have it,the public is focused on us meanwhile they get rich.It's brilliant if evil, a totally brilliant scheme.And best of all, it works.

Saturday, March 23, 2013

When I was interviewed by KGW I took Jason Mchuff with me who filmed the entire interview. KGW took pieces of the interview for broadcast but we had the entire interview. I remember the woman doing the interviewing remarking 'that's the first time somebody has filmed me while I was filming them!

It has turned out that this incident may have occurred due to a misunderstanding between the road supervisor and Lane Jensen. Since both parties have a different interpretation of the events this post has been removed for lack of proof either way

Don't let Trimet managment continue exploiting your labor so the over paid executivescan live lavish lifestyles with six figure incomes while you spend your life toiling for them.
Trimet management screws you out of your earned vacation when you move from part time to full time, they screw you out of your time when dealing with their road relief nonsense, how many times have you come in late from your shift and didn't fill out that stupid time slip they make you fill out, and now they are attempting to screw us out of our decent health care insurance so they can continue expanding this already bankrupt transit agency even though they have abandoned transit years ago in favor of property development and all the riches it brings the executive class

1400 AC Transit drivers joined this lawsuit and this is what they walked away with:Breed pointed to a similar case against the Alameda-Contra Costa (California) Transit District settled in favor of the operators last year.
The judge in that case awarded $7 million to operators, plus $10,000 to
each main plaintiff and $1.65 million in attorney fees. In that case,
well over 1,300 operators became party to the class action suit.

JOIN THE LAWSUIT DON'T ALLOW TRIMET MANAGEMENT TO SCARE YOU! I know Trimet keeps its drivers in a state of constant paranoia, but fight for your rights!

It appears that blogger Jack Bodganski is GIVING UP BLOGGING.
Loosing his blog as a source of information is a HUGE BLOW for those of us who are interested in reading news other than official government propaganda.
Not one newspaper in this town does what he does.
Not sure why he doesn't turn it over to one or several of his regular commentators there. There are more than a few that could pick up where he left off.
It appears they made him an offer he couldn't refuse. ( I can't think of anything more boring than writing a book about tax code)
I find that sort of a strange coincidence, he was one of the top blogs in the country.